In today's modern society, maintaining road infrastructure is imperative in promoting commerce and safe transportation. Traffic accidents are a leading cause of death in America today. Many such collisions are due to unsafe road conditions stemming from severe weather conditions including ice and snow. While state governments are fairly proactive with maintaining the roads with large snow plowing trucks and industrial sized deicing vehicles, many smaller locally accessed roads also suffer from unsafe road conditions from severe weather. In places where local municipal governments have no programs for winter road deicing maintenance, small business owners and residents are left to deice their busy roads and intersections. Often times, such work is contracted at great expense to the individual. With the high level of financial strain experienced by most small business owners and individuals, it would be advantageous to provide consumers with a low cost, easily maintained deicing system.
A common method to lower the inherent risk of traffic accidents on roadways is to spread brine to increase the friction on the roads. Liquid brine has been shown to allow less brine usage while still attaining the desired added traction. Among those products which use liquid brine, U.S. Pat. No. 6,382,523 discloses a road brine spreader for driving along a road and spreading out liquid brine under pressure via a number of liquid nozzles.
A problem arising from the application of liquid brine is the crystallization which occurs at the end of the nozzle tips due to the severe cold weather conditions. Crystallization occurs over time and results in clogged nozzle heads and an uneven spray distribution. Because the nozzles are permanently attached to the boom, removing crystallization in the nozzle tip is burdensome and time consuming. The continual need to maintain the nozzle heads adds burden and expense to roadway deicing.
Large industrial size deicing systems are not practical for use by small business owners. In an effort to provide access to deicing systems for small business and individual use, many products have been made available for consumers. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 7,413,132 discloses a sprayer which can be towed behind a tractor or lawn mower.
The sprayer assembly includes a frame that supports a tank for storing a liquid chemical. A pump moves the liquid chemical from the tank to one or more spray nozzles through a flexible hose supported by a boom. This sprayer includes wheels to engage and move over the underlying ground surface. The sprayer assembly further discloses flexible hoses with spray nozzles which deliver the liquid chemical to the desired area. However, this sprayer assembly utilizes an external housing and an independent chassis with wheels. The internal infrastructure of the pump systems, liquid storage tanks, and power source are fully encompassed within the external housing and not easily accessible by the consumer without complete disassembly. In order to replace internal parts and diagnose maintenance issues, the entire housing must be disassembled. Less technically savvy individuals will need to take their sprayer to the manufacturer for adjustments. Further troublesome, the wheel and chassis of this sprayer provides only limited ground clearance, and is susceptible to road hazards interfering with smooth, trouble-free operation.
In light of the above, it would be advantageous to provide a sprayer assembly with separate exposed subsystems which are individually accessible. It would be further advantageous to be able to disassemble the sprayer for easy storage in the off season without requiring difficult disassembly and reassembly or the need for professional assistance. It would be further advantageous to have easily removable nozzle tips, facilitating user-friendly cleaning and reduced maintenance time.